No less than a trial: the constitutional nature of arbitration in the Russian legal system

---

In the modern world, the effective realization of the tasks of justice is largely determined by the development of alternative jurisdictional institutions (as opposed to state-run court systems), including arbitration. Arbitration is a method of resolving civil and other legal disputes that is generally recognized in legal society and that is based on the autonomy of will and equality of subjects of legal relations, as well as broad procedural discretion. Arbitration is a private jurisdictional activity and is a characteristic of self-organization in civil society, which is called upon to play a key role in the development of the rule of law. However, it cannot be opposed to the standards of justice, namely the standards of independence, impartiality, and fairness, which are of a general jurisdictional character. Nevertheless, arbitration is often denied as a part of the judiciary on the basis that the administration of justice is an exclusive function of the state and therefore is entirely placed in the domain of the domestic judiciary. However, does this potestarian paradigm of justice strengthen its quality and legal authority? Is it possible for arbitration, which is excluded from the national judiciary and reduced to transactions or services, to gain its own place in the endorsement of legal fairness by its procedures and acts? Asking themselves these questions, the authors of this article determine the constitutional nature of arbitration as an activity akin by its content to the administration of justice, which also has certain specific features that do not deny, but complement and develop its judicial principles. Arbitration is considered in the unity of jurisdictional, regulatory, and mediation aspects. It is possible with its assistance to settle legal disputes, as well as to shape the most optimal individual legal regulation based on the prevailing approaches in doctrine and practice in search of a compromise between the parties. Due to the convincing value of the expressed legal positions, it can acquire a certain significance of precedent. In this regard, this article discusses the peculiarities of the legal nature of arbitral awards, the participation of arbitration in judicial constitutionalism, and the specifics of the organizational and functional activity associated with the formation of permanent arbitration courts, and formulates proposals for improving the legal regulation of the arbitration sphere.

About the author: Armen Dzhagaryan – Doctor of Sciences in Law, Advisor to Judge, Russian Constitutional Court, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Olga Benedskaya – Attorney, Reporter in the International Commercial Arbitration Court and the Maritime Arbitration Commission at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Dzhagaryan A., Benedskaya O. (2018) Ne men'she, chem sud: konstitutsionnaya priroda treteyskogo razbiratel'stva v rossiyskoy pravovoy sisteme [No less than a trial: the constitutional nature of arbitration in the Russian legal system]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 106–125.

References

Baleevskikh L.S. (2014) Treteyskiy sud kak zayavitel' v Konstitutsionnom Sude Rossii [The arbitration court as an applicant in the Constitutional Court of Russia]. Treteyskiy sud, no.6, pp.123–124. (In Russian).

Bondar' N.S., Dzhagaryan A.A. (2018) Pravosudie: orientatsiya na Konstitutsiyu [Justice: focus on the Constitution], Moscow: Norma. (In Russian).

Chupahin I.M. (2015) Reshenie treteyskogo suda: teoreticheskie i prikladnye problemy [The decision of the arbitration court: theoretical and applied problems], Moscow: Infotropnik Media. (In Russian).

Ershov V.V. (2018) Pravovoe i individual'noe regulirovanie obshchestvennykh otnosheniy [Legal and individual regulation of social relations], Moscow: RGUP. (In Russian).

Gendzekhadze E.N. (1954) Treteyskiy sud v SSSR: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [The court of arbitration in the USSR: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Moscow. (In Russian).

Gimazov R.N. (2006) Protsessual'nye aspekty vzaimodeystviya arbitrazhnykh i treteyskikh sudov: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [Procedural aspects of interaction between arbitration and state arbitration courts: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Saratov. (In Russian).

Golubev N.N. (1904) Mezhdunarodnye treteyskie sudy XIX veka [International arbitral tribunals of the 21st century], Moscow: Universitetskaya tipografiya. (In Russian).

Grevtsov Yu.I. (2017) Zakon. Otvetstvennost'. Poryadok: Kurs lektsiy [Law. Responsibility. Order: A course of lectures], Saint-Petersburg: Nauka. (In Russian).

Happ R., Bashkova A. (2015) Germaniya kak mesto treteyskogo razbira­tel'stva [Germany as place of arbitration]. In: Sbornik statey o prave Germanii [Collection of articles on German law], vol.1. (In Russian).

Hobbs T. (1991) Sochineniya v dvukh tomakh [Works in two volumes], vol.2, Moscow: Mysl'. (In Russian).

Holodenko Yu.V. (2017) Treteyskoe razbiratel'stvo: reforma ili unichtozhenie? [Arbitration: reform or destruction?]. Treteyskiy sud, no.4, pp.28–36. (In Russian).

Izmest'eva E.M. (2006) Sub'ekty pravoprimenitel'noy deyatel'nosti v uslo­viyakh detsentralizatsii pravovogo regulirovaniya v Rossii: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [Subjects of law enforcement in the context of decentralization of legal regulation in Russia: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Saratov. (In Russian).

Kazhlaev S.A. (2016) Dostizhenie balansa chastnogo i publichnogo interesa v treteyskikh sporakh [Achieving Balance between Private and Public Interests in Arbitration Disputes], Zhurnal rossiyskogo prava, no.4, pp.119–124. (In Russian).

Kel'zen G. (2006) Sudebnaya garantiya konstitutsii (konstitutsionnaya yustitsiya). Chast' 1 [Judicial guarantee of the Constitution (constitutional justice). Part 1]. Pravo i politika, no.8, pp.5–14. (In Russian).

Kleandrov M.I. (2007) Ekonomicheskoe pravosudie v Rossii: proshloe, na­stoyashchee, budushchee[Economic justice in Russia: past, present, future], Moscow: Wolters Kluwer. (In Russian).

Kruss V.I. (2003) Pravo na predprinimatel'skuyu deyatel'nost' – konstitutsionnoe polnomochie lichnosti [The right to entrepreneurial activity – the constitutional power of the individual], Moscow: Yurist. (In Russian).

Kruss V.I. (2013) Konstitutsionalizatsiya pravosudiya i konstitutsionno-pravovye predely neposredstvennoy demokratii v Rossiyskoy Federatsii [The constitutionalization of justice and constitutional and legal limits of direct democracy in the Russian Federation]. Rossiyskiy yuridicheskiy zhurnal, no.3, pp.79–87. (In Russian).

Kurochkin S.A. (2004) Teoretiko-pravovye osnovy treteyskogo razbiratel'stva v Rossiyskoy Federatsii: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [Theoretical and legal basis of arbitration in the Russian Federation: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Ekaterinburg. (In Russian).

Kurochkin S.A. (2017) Reforma arbitrazha v Rossii: obshchie podkhody k otsenke ehffektivnosti novogo zakonodatel'stva [Arbitration reform in Russia: basic tools for evaluating the effectiveness of new legislation]. Zakon, no.9, pp.65–76. (In Russian).

Kuz'min A.G. (2016) Konstitutsionalizatsiya rossiyskogo pravosudiya (arbitrazhno-sudebnyy aspekt): problemy teorii i praktiki [The constitutionalization of Russian justice (arbitration and judicial aspect): problems of theory and practice], Moscow: Izdatel'skiy dom “Gorodets”. (In Russian).

Lebedev V.M., Habrieva T.Ya. (eds.) (2017) Pravosudie v sovremennom mire [Justice in the modern world], 2nd ed., Moscow: Norma. (In Russian).

Lock J. (1988) Sochineniya v tryokh tomakh [Works in three volumes], vol.3, Moscow: Mysl'. (In Russian).

Mihel' D.E. (2011) Pravovoy status treteyskogo suda v otechestvennoy i zarubezhnoy doktrine prava i konstitucionnoy praktike [Legal status of the arbitration court in domestic and foreign legal doctrine and constitutional practice]. Yurist-Pravoved, no.6, pp.95–98. (In Russian).

Morshchakova T. (2017) Sudebnoe upravlenie v mezhdunarodnykh normakh “myagkogo prava” i rossiyskikh praktikakh [Judicial management in the international norms of “soft law” and Russian practices]. Srav­nitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no.1, pp.81–94. (In Russian).

Murad'yan E.M. (2004) Istina kak problema sudebnogo prava [Truth as a problem of judicial law], 2nd ed., Moscow: Yurist. (In Russian).

Pokrovskiy I.A. (2001) Osnovnye problemy grazhdanskogo prava [The main problems of civil law], 3rd ed., Moscow: Statut. (In Russian).

Savost'yanov G.V. (2013) Pravovaya priroda treteyskogo razbiratel'stva i kompetentsiya treteyskogo suda v sfere nedvizhimosti: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [The legal nature of arbitration and the jurisdiction of the arbitration court in the field of real estate: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Moscow. (In Russian).

Shchavelev A. (2018) Novyy Reglament Kommercheskogo Arbitrazha 2018 Nemetskogo Arbitrazhnogo Instituta [New Commercial Arbitration Rules of the German Arbitration Institute for 2018]. In: Sbornik statey o prave Germanii [Collection of articles on German law], vol.3. (In Russian).

Shteynberg I.Ya. (1925) Treteyskiy sud i predely ego kompetentsii [The court of arbitration and the limits of its competence]. Vestnik sovetskoy yusti­tsii, no.15–16, pp.608–609. (In Russian).

Skvortsov O.Yu. (2006) Problemy treteyskogo razbiratel'stva predprinima­tel'skikh sporov v Rossii: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [Problems of arbitration of business cases in Russia: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Saint-Petersburg. (In Russian).

Skvortsov O.Yu. (2017) O konservativnoy modeli arbitrazha [A conservative model for arbitration]. Zakon, no.9, pp.60–64. (In Russian).

Stepin A.B. (2016) Formy individual'nogo sudebnogo regulirovaniya [Forms of individual judicial regulation]. Rossiyskiy zhurnal pravovykh issledovaniy, no.4, pp.21–24. (In Russian).

Toybner G. (2016) Kontury konstitutsionnoy sotsiologii: preodolenie isklyu­chitel'nosti gosudarstvennogo konstitutsionalizma [Contours of constitutional sociology: overcoming the exclusiveness of state constitutionalism]. Sravnitel'noe konstitucionnoe obozrenie, no.1, pp.41–55. (In Russian).

Tsihotskiy A.V. (1997) Teoreticheskie problemy effektivnosti pravosudiya po grazhdanskim delam[Theoretical problems of efficiency of justice in civil cases], Novosibirsk: Nauka. (In Russian).

Vinogradova E.A. (1994) Pravovye osnovy organizatsii i deyatel'nosti tretey­skogo suda: Dis. … kand. yurid. nauk [The legal basis of organization and activity of the arbitration court: Cand. of sci. in law diss.], Moscow. (In Russian).

Volkov A.F. (1913) Torgovye treteyskie sudy: istoriko-dogmaticheskoe issledovanie [Commercial arbitration courts: historical and dogmatic study], Saint-Petersburg: Tipografiya Redaktsii periodicheskikh izdaniy Ministerstva finansov. (In Russian).

Yakovlev V.F. (2012) Pravovoe gosudarstvo: voprosy formirovaniya [State of law: issues of formation], Moscow: Statut. (In Russian).

Yarkov V.V. (ed.) (2017) Arbitrazhnyy protsess [The arbitration process], 7th ed., Moscow: Statut. (In Russian).

Zaytsev A.I. (2017) Minusy reformirovannogo treteyskogo razbiratel'stva v Rossii [Disadvantages of reformed arbitration in Russia]. Treteyskiy sud, no.4, pp.37–48. (In Russian).

Zaytsev O.V. (2018) Rol' sudebnykh resheniy (pretsedentov) i sudebnoy praktiki v regulirovanii obshchestvennykh otnosheniy [The role of judicial decisions (precedents) and judicial practice in the regulation of public relations]. Vestnik grazhdanskogo protsessa, no.2, pp.105–136. (In Russian).

Zor'kin V.D. (2011) Konstitutsionno-pravovoe razvitie Rossii [The constitutional development of Russia], Moscow: Norma: INFRA-M. (In Russian).